Lionsgate’s The Divergent Series: Insurgent led the box office this weekend with a first place debut of $52.26 million. The second installment of the young adult series starring Shailene Woodley debuted on the low end of its pre-release expectations. Insurgent opened 4 percent below the $54.61 million start of last year’s Divergent. However, it should be noted that Insurgent had the added advantage of higher priced 3D admissions, while Divergent did not. With that said, Insurgent was still off to a very solid start of its own this weekend. It should also be noted that the film’s overseas start was significantly stronger than that of Divergent.
Insurgent opened with $21.15 million on Friday (which included an estimated $4.1 million from evening shows on Thursday), fell 7 percent on Saturday to gross $19.69 million and declined 42 percent on Sunday to gross $11.43 million. That places the film’s opening weekend to Friday ratio at 2.47 to 1. In comparison, Divergent had a ratio of 2.40 to 1. Insurgent having a slightly more back-loaded opening weekend performance than Divergent had could be a good sign for Insurgent going forward, though it could also be a sign of the film’s initial audience being less fan-driven this time around.
The audience breakdown for The Divergent Series: Insurgent skewed towards female moviegoers (60 percent) and towards moviegoers under the age of 25 (55 percent). The film received a healthy A- rating on CinemaScore.
Cinderella placed in second this weekend with a strong $34.97 million. Disney’s blockbuster fairy tale adaptation was down 48 percent from last weekend’s debut. That represented a respectable second weekend hold, especially when considering the direct competition the film faced from Insurgent and that Cinderella lost most of its IMAX screens to Insurgent as well. Cinderella zoomed past the $100 million domestic mark this weekend and has grossed $122.52 million in ten days. That places the film a slim 4 percent behind the $128.18 million ten-day start of last year’s Maleficent (which declined 51 percent in its second weekend to gross $34.33 million). Maleficent went on to stabilize very nicely later on in its run, and Cinderella will have a strong chance of doing the same, especially given the limited amount of new options for family audiences in April.
With Insurgent and Cinderella currently dominating the box office, the rest of the weekend’s line-up made very little noise. It was an especially close race for third, with action thrillers Run All Night and The Gunman separated by an extremely slim $3,621 for the frame.
Warner’s Run All Night finished in third place with $5.032 million. The Liam Neeson led action thriller was down 54 percent from last weekend, which represented a typical second weekend decline for a Neeson vehicle. Run All Night has grossed $19.64 million in ten days. That is a bit below expectations and places the film 6 percent behind the $20.83 million ten-day take of last year’s A Walk Among the Tombstones (which fell 67 percent in its second weekend to gross $4.19 million).
Open Road‘s The Gunman debuted in fourth place with $5.029 million. The Sean Penn led action thriller opened a bit below its already modest pre-release expectations. Online activity for the film had been especially soft in the weeks leading up to its release and the film arriving so soon after Run All Night certainly didn’t help matters either. The Gunman opened a significant 54 percent softer than the already soft $11.01 million start of Run All Night last weekend.
The Gunman started out with $1.77 million on Friday, increased 13 percent on Saturday to gross $1.99 million and declined 37 percent on Sunday to take in $1.26 million. That gave the film an opening weekend to Friday ratio of 2.84 to 1. The Gunman received a lackluster B- rating on CinemaScore and should fade away from theatres quickly.
Fox’s Kingsman: The Secret Service rounded out the weekend’s top five with $4.63 million. The Matthew Vaughn directed graphic novel adaptation starring Colin Firth was down just 26 percent from last weekend, as the film continues to hold up very nicely. The 38-day total for Kingsman stands at a stronger than expected $114.59 million.
Do You Believe? arrived in sixth place with $3.59 million. The faith-based drama from Pure Flix opened a bit below expectations and failed to approach the $9.22 million start of last year’s God’s Not Dead, though it wasn’t widely expected to do so. Do You Believe? grossed $1.21 million on Friday, increased a slim 9 percent on Saturday to gross $1.32 million and decreased just 20 percent on Sunday to gross $1.06 million. That placed the film’s opening weekend to Friday ratio at 2.96 to 1. Do You Believe? will hope to hold up well going forward, thanks in part to the approaching Easter holiday.
On the platform front, It Follows continued its solid performance with $344,874 from 32 locations. That gave the critically acclaimed horror thriller from RADiUS-TWC a per-location average of $10,777 for the frame. It Follows has grossed $568,901 through ten days of platform release. Based on its performance thus far and on the strong critical buzz surrounding the film, It Follows is scheduled to expand into semi-wide release next weekend.
Share this post